Troops Oops

An oldie but a goodie.

No One Wants an Alien

Looking from the inside you feel nothing on the outside is real.
Does it really show?
All the other kids put you down.
No one ever wants you around.
No one wants an alien.
Never never thought you could feel cause everything around you stands still.
But will they ever know?
Dreaming of a place far away.
You know you were born here astray.
Does it really show?
Can't make it playing their game when everyone plays it the same.
No one wants an alien.
Never never thought you could feel cause everything around you stands still.
But will they ever know?
Looking from the inside you feel nothing on the outside is real.
Does it really show?
The vision keeps coming at you still cause something deep inside of you is real.
But will they ever know?
Never never thought you could feel cause everything around you stands still.
No one wants an alien.

American Jesus

Great song, incredible lyrics. How do you come up with this shit?

Check out Greg Hetson's shirt. This is pre-Dookie, mind you. Look how long Jay Bentley's hair is.

Brett, not a great period for him.

Struck a Nerve

Fucking brilliant.

Show review / "Do you listen to punk?"

I went to see Bad Religion two weeks ago, no wait, last week, on October 26th. It was the second night of their "30 Years of Bad Religion" deal at Irving Plaza, where they broke up their career into three shows. The first was supposed to be How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, Suffer and No Control. I didn't go to that one because, while those records are great, and the last two are basically perfect, I was way more into the idea of the second night and I didn't have the money ($27.50 plus $12 in service charges) to spend on two shows. I guess it turns out for the better, as they played a boatload of new songs and some hits from the 90s, although I did miss "Billy Gnosis," which I suppose was not really Billy Gnosis, as they had no keyboard and how could it be Billy Gnosis without that Bruce Springsteen breakdown?

So the second night was Against the Grain, Generator, Recipe for Hate, Stranger than Fiction, The Gray Race and No Substance. People, including Bad Religion, called it 90s night, but thank fucking Jah they left out The New America. That means that they could only play really good to unbelievable songs. There are no bad songs on those records, at all. I was real psyched on the idea.

I got there shortly after eight PM, as I live anywhere from one to two or more hours away, depending on traffic. It only took me a little over an hour, so I was there a bit earlier. I knew the show was sold out and I wanted a good spot to watch from the balcony. I walked in just after Off with Their Heads went on. Boring as hell mid-tempo punk stuff that I've heard a thousand times. I thought maybe it would be something decent as they were recently on No Idea. They had nothing to say for themselves, with the exception of "I have bedbugs" and "So who's excited for Bad Religion?" Oh, and the head-shakingly pointless "How is everybody doing out there?" Boring boring boring. Four dudes in black t-shirts and jeans trying to look cool while they played. They don't seem to be all that into what they play, in their hearts.

After they finished, I very quickly realized that while I had an excellent vantage point from which to watch Bad Religion, I was stuck next to this witless dude pounding (what I found out were $11) beer after beer who felt the need to talk to everyone, yet paradoxically had nothing to say. His story will continue.

The Aggrolites were up next. Musically, they are fucking bad. Funk-ska. However, in spirit and energy, I enjoy them. Those dudes are real into what they are doing and play it cause that's exactly what they want to be doing. There is no funk-ska scene, and accordingly, they will not be able to capitalize on their popularity within it. They are also super tight and the singer can work a crowd. The keyboard player was so happy to be playing, smiling and bopping his head the whole time.

The drunk dude, the witless one from above, absolutely hated them. He made sure everyone around him knew, as he kept pretending to shoot himself. He bonded with the bro next to me over their distaste for the band. They both agreed that the Aggrolites really "suck." Yeah man, they sure suck. Then these men's respective girlfriends got in on the action, so that there were now four people reassuring one another that the Aggrolites suck. It was deep. The drunk man's girlfriend, in an act of extreme daring, yelled, from the balcony, while the band was playing, mind you, "You suck!" Well let me tell you, that went over extremely well within a one-foot radius. Her boyfriend damn near fell over with laughter. The other couple ate it up as well. You would think we were watching Sinatra in 1943 by the reaction they had. It was as though the woman had made an incredible breach of etiquette that had never been seen before. They acted as though it was so outrageous, and at least as creative.

The longer the Aggrolites played, the more joy I felt from watching the empty-eyed gang around me aggravate themselves. It was great. There was another "You suck!" from the girlfriend, and it had about the same effect. Hooray for the Aggrolites.

It was during this time that the drunk man and the bro really bonded. They talked about Pennywise. The drunkard (who also consumed a shot of Jaegermeister, which likely brought his alcohol bill upwards of $100 for the evening) informed the bro that he had recently seen them with their replacement singer, and it was good, "but it wasn't Jim." It sure wasn't. Then he asked the bro if he listened to punk. The bro indicated that he did. The thirsty man inquired as to whether or not he had ever heard of the band "Minor Threat." I haven't. Sounds dangerous. He said that, yes, he had heard of them. The guy with the big wallet took much delight in telling him that one of the guitar players used to be in that band. This, of course, is precious knowledge, limited to a select few from deep within the underground. During Bad Religion, he identified himself as being one of the lucky knowing ones by yelling "Minor Threat!" Wow. That guy was probably at the first show of every band.

After a while of listening to these people talk about nothing, Bad Religion came on. Finally. They opened with "The Gray Race." It was good. I was into their current drummer being able to play proper fast beats on the cymbals, instead of doing that cheat shit that Bobby Schayer became increasingly fond of over time, where he hits the cymbal and snare at the same time instead of double-timing the cymbal. However, I did not like Brooks' (the current drummer) changing of songs, which was pretty major in some cases. He changed a lot of fills, which is alright, I guess, but he just straight up changed beats in other songs. "Generator" was perhaps most demonstrative of this. "A Walk" was also notable. Fact of the matter is that Pete Finestone was the best drummer that band ever had. That dude was sick. If you doubt this, listen to Against the Grain once more.

Also, Brian Baker, who now looks like an older, more bloated version of this dude Matt I used to know, was pretty into inserting his own rock dude solos into songs, replete with wah pedal. Not cool. He put some solos where there weren't any and changed a bunch more. I'm just not into that. These songs were fucking fantastic when recorded. They really cannot be improved. It works in other situations, but not here. However shitty Brian Baker's life may or may not have been, there is absolutely no way he can channel the desperation that Brett expressed in the opening lead part to "Modern Man." Anyone other than Brett trying to play that song just cannot do it justice. Impossible.

Here are the songs they played, from memory, in chronological order, as recorded:

• Modern Man
• Turn On The Light
• Anesthesia
• Flat Earth Society
• Generator
• No Direction
• Atomic Garden
• Recipe for Hate
• Struck a Nerve
• My Poor Friend Me
• Stranger than Fiction
• Infected
• Marked
• What It Is
• The Gray Race
• A Walk
• Come Join Us
• Hear It
• Sowing the Seeds of Utopia
• The Resist Stance
• Wrong Way Kids

Then they played a three-song encore:

• American Jesus
• Fuck Armageddon
• Sorrow

If you want to find out the actual order, my housemate told me there is a setlist website. There may have been another new song in there, not sure. Maybe I forgot another song or two as well.

Yes, it's true, they played neither "Cease" nor "Skyscraper." Granted, they would have had to play a five hour set to sate my needs for this era of their existence, but fucking come on. Those are two brutal, devastating songs and they played neither. They know those are incredible songs. Fucking shit.

The entire set, the big guy with the appetite for consumption next to me did this really weird thing where for every song (except the couple he didn't know cause the words were sung too fast) he would lean forward, bend down, put his elbow on the balcony railing, and emphatically mouth the words into his girlfriend's ear. It was strange and distracting. I noticed at one point that she had her hand over her ear. Later, she just got out of the way and stood behind him for the rest of the set. Why didn't I move, right? Cause it really was the best spot I could get. I would have wound up standing behind people anywhere else. It was the only spot on the balcony that wasn't already obstructed when I got there.

Final random thoughts - not a huge fan of Brooks' style. He is an excellent drummer, but he plays around with the songs too much. I wish he would be more true to the originals. It's not like they had boring, shitty, incapable drummers before. I'm glad that Greg and Brian got off that Mesa kick. The guitars on The Process of Belief sounded not so good. Greg is using Mesa cabinets again, but both he and Brian are using Marshall heads and Jay has one of those reissue vintage SVT heads with matching 8x10. I approve.

Too heavy, too light

Heroism - James Willie Jones

I wish I had a father like this. My parents never really cared all that much. I wish a more people had parents like this. We would have a whole lot less bullying.

James Willie Jones went on the school bus to deal with asshole kids who were fucking with his thirteen-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy. They were putting open condoms on her head, smacking her and yelling horrible shit at her. I don't care how old they were. It's never ok. Stop it by any means necessary. No one should have to live through that. It never ends when the words and actions do.

Unfortunately, the pig-fuck legal system forced him to supplicate himself before televised audiences and apologize, saying what he did was wrong. The hell it was.

Eight hundred thousand cheers for this man, and then some. This video brings tears to my eyes.

Tyler Clementi/Dharun Ravi/Molly Wei - people are garbage, part 900

Yeah. Get us off the planet, please. All of us. As soon as possible. It's got to happen.

So do you know this story yet? Probably. It seems to be much larger than just around here. Well, here is the short version. Two college freshmen, Dharun Ravi and Tyler Clementi, shared a dorm at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They do not seem to have been friends, and they did not know one another before September. Tyler was gay, but not out about it. Dharun found out about it, apparently through spying on him, when Tyler asked him to have the room to himself for a few hours, with his webcam and watching it in his friend's room. Her name is Molly Wei. She also goes to Rutgers. Or went. If she didn't stop going, I'm sure she'll be expelled with Dharun, or at least physically prohibited from going when they are in jail. So anyway, he was spying on him. He posted a message to Twitter about it on September 19th that read as such:

Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.

So the next time, he thought it would be funny, I guess, if he showed other people. Tyler again asked for the room, September 21st, and this was Dharun's reaction, again via Twitter:

Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again.

Tyler found out that this had happened (by reading Dharun's Twitter) and jumped off the George Washington Bridge the next day. They found his body yesterday or the day before, I don't know. He left shit on the bridge to identify him - his wallet, with ID inside. He posted this on his Facebook:

jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.

The day he killed himself, Tyler reported Dharun to the person in charge of his floor, as well as two of his superiors. The campus police got involved. Dharun and Molly were arrested and released. They are, for the time being, pre-body being found, facing up to five years for invasion of privacy.

So.

We have a lot of things here. The collision of technology and the ancient intolerance that seems to be endemic to our species, as far as recorded history tells it. The standard "homophobia." It still being largely acceptable to mock gay people, being gay, or having "gay" qualities.

Here are some stupid things people will/have said:

Dharun and Molly didn't mean for him to kill himself. Yeah, well, he jumped, didn't he?

He took it the wrong way. He took having his sexuality, of which he is supposed to be ashamed and for which he is generally reckoned to be going to hell, which is never looked upon by the world as a positive thing, that he had not told his parents (cause you have to tell people that you are gay, but not that you aren't gay) or anyone else, except the guy on the webcam with him, broadcast across the internet to anyone Dharun knew, and in turn anyone they knew and so forth, the wrong way? Yeah, I guess you're right.

It's not their fault he was ashamed of who he was. Well, yeah, it actually is. I doubt he was ashamed though, just made to feel that he should be. I know about that. They made him into a spectacle. What a freak, right?

It was a prank. Not really. I think what people mean by this, if they had the depth of intelligence to consider it, is that being a gay person is funny - it's a novelty. They are characters for us to laugh at, to observe.

He would have done it if Tyler were with a woman, too. Probably not, but I don't think too many people would be questioning if it were wrong if that were the case.

Dharun is open minded/has gay friends. All but the most ardent racists have black friends (especially the kind who say that there are black people and then there are niggers). You'll never meet them though.

They didn't realize what they are doing. If he didn't kill himself, would they ever have realized it? No, it would have kept being funny. Fact. They are fucking 18 years old. Adults. Gotta learn sometime, right? I was raised in the same shitty fucking society as they were, but I got the fucking message early on that it's not fucking ok to hate gay people or make anyone feel like shit for being born. They, apparently, did not get that message. Doesn't matter. You cannot excuse yourself from the grave consequences of actions you deliberately choose by saying "Oh, I didn't realize it." I don't fucking care what you did or didn't realize. Too late, huh? Here are some good examples of this reasoning that fall way short:

• "I only had five beers. I'm usually good like that. I must have fallen asleep."
• "Fuck, I didn't realize it was loaded."
• "I didn't mean to hit you that hard, I was angry."
• "I had no idea the knife was that sharp."
• "I didn't think it would actually hit you, I have bad aim."
• "Shit, I guess it will stain after all. Come on, it was a joke."

I know kids like this. Fucking assholes. I spent much of my life going to school with them. They are probably rich, given where they went to high school, or if not rich themselves, surrounded by a bunch of rich fucks with whom they had to keep up. I went to high school, and elementary, and middle school with a lot of rich kids and middle class kids whose parents pretended they were rich. I hate them. There are kids I knew then, ten, twenty years ago, who I still hope get in car accidents. There are armies of these assholes all over the place, and they often wind up running things. That's a big part of why shit sucks.

Fuck anyone who tells you to take it with a grain of salt, talks of not letting it affect you. I live with the mental and emotional marks those people inflicted on me from the time I was five years old. You try getting ripped down every day for over ten years and coming out on top.

My partner was watching this very nice video that Ellen DeGeneres made about her reaction to Tyler's suicide. It's also a message to kids like him. In it, she says, "I want anyone out there who feels different and alone to know that I know how you feel." My partner stopped it and started crying. She said that she wished she had someone to tell her that when she was younger. Me too.

And you know what else? I guarantee you that a ton of people who will say, "Oh, that's so terrible, such a tragedy..." will turn around and call someone a faggot five minutes later, or a fucking homo, or say "No homo" or tell someone how "gay" something is. FUCK ALL OF YOU.

Fucking assholes don't get it.

Let's start saying that things we don't like are not just gay, but Puerto Rican, fat, female, black, Chinese, cancerous, have Alzheimer's, fetal alcohol syndrome-ish, autistic, African, poor, Native American, schizophrenic, have eating disorders, Arab, paralyzed, amputated or rape victims.

Koran burner Derek Fenton booted from his job at NJ Transit

Good. Fuck this guy and his "First Amendment rights." He's just a hateful piece of shit who would probably pull the fucking switch on anyone who is Muslim. Thoughtless reactionary fuck, running around screaming about 9/11 with no consideration given to what he says, means or does. Please, do not let reality get in your way, sir.

I would like to point out that his protest site, the "Ground Zero" mosque isn't a mosque and it's not at "Ground Zero." I quote from Frank Rich:

THE “ground zero mosque,” as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It’s not a mosque but an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room....Still, the battle that has broken out over this project in Lower Manhattan — on the “hallowed ground” of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory store one block from the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club — will prove eventful all the same.

And here we have some basically brilliant commentary from Gawker (the post is worth reading in its entirety):

While you spent your Sunday trying to teach your cat to go to the bathroom on a human toilet, a group of brave, freedom-loving Americans gathered in New York City to express their extreme disapproval with the Park 51 project, an al-Qaeda plot to build a community center featuring a swimming pool and auditorium on the very site where a Burlington Coat Factory once stood.

I love how his neighbors are all defending him. I'm sure they wouldn't be talking about any rights if he were burning such things as a bible, an American flag or pictures of their children. It's so cool to hate Muslims right now.

How fucking shortsighted are people? "Muslims killed Americans! Muslim bad! Islam no good, bad bad! I wanna fuck Sarah Palin!!!"

Please don't misunderstand me as defending religion. It's all profoundly stupid and silly, no matter what god you worship. It all saps your energy, will, and faith in the self. Fuck it all. But the thing is, you can't just pick one religion and say "Oh, this is the bad one. I hate it so much, because, you know, it's just so bad. And mine is so great. It's very, very different. Just so different." It's all the fucking same.

Fuck this place.

True words

Brilliant insight.

"Racism continues to reflect a disparity of power and it is as egregious today as it was in the eighteenth century because the advent of less dramatic forms of dominance is not progress. More insidious in modern social relations is the fact that white people do not have to expressly target black people in order to exploit them. They only have to locate their interests in private and public policies that have disparate impact. Freed from involvement in color-specific political decisions and specific acts of racial oppression, white Americans can more easily imagine the injustices of their society to be natural or irrational."

- Craig Steven Wilder, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn, p. 241.

Leadership

Here is Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona and the country's leading anti-immigration politician, giving a public address on television as to why people should reelect her:




Yup.

I guess her groomers/coaches tell her to never stop smiling, no matter what.

The only people who have justification to act like this are the senile and the very high.

Smart people

Have smart things to say. Finally, the real Americans emerged from Wal-Mart and their PT Cruisers or whatever.

It's nice to see a group of people who really "get it," whatever "it" may be. But let me tell you, they get it. I hope they are able to stop Saddam.

I must say, I am disappointed to not have seen Hulk Hogan getting in on this, though the man directly above may be related to him.

In case you have forgotten:

How the Mighty Have Fallen, Part 1

Rancid. What a great band. A lot of people I know are real into the first self-titled record, but I am not one of them. After that, however, it's hit after hit - Let's Go, And out Come the Wolves, Life Won't Wait, and the second self-titled, or "Rancid 2000" as it's often known. Everything else after that sucked. Still, four (by my estimation) great, and I mean great, records is really something. There are no bad songs on those records (well, there is one, but I will get to it, and it's only lyrically bad). Fucking gold.

I was listening to Let's Go this morning and reveled in Tim's hatred of the police, listening to him singing in "Harry Bridges" about how "Bloody Thursday was July 5th, the pigs killed 3 workers, Harry Bridges grabbed the mic," and certainly best of all, when "every single cop got a bullet in the head" in "Sidekick." Even Lars gets in on the action, telling us about Mary being "out the door with a loaded .44 in her hand, shooting down the law that shot down her dear departed man." Fuck pigs, yes, fuck them all to hell.

It was bad enough to find out the man is a Christian (that's the one bad song I was referencing above, "Who Would've Thought" from Life Won't Wait - it's about him "finding god" or whatever bullshit. Unfortunately, I am not able to locate the interview in which I read that at this time.) but now he fucking writes songs about the troops. And not in the good way. No no, Tim unequivocally praises them. He's one of those all-too-common people who somehow views soldiers in a morality vacuum, seeing them as simply "doing their job," no questions of wrong or right being asked, never mind answered. Why, here he is, quoted recently in the Navy Times (not kidding):

“Whatever you think of the war — everyone has their own opinions — you’ve got to give respect to the soldiers,” Armstrong says. “I do, big time.”

No, actually, I need give no respect to the soldiers. You see, the reality that no one wants to admit is that THEY ARE THE FUCKING WAR. Yes, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama could have all the plans they want, the Pentagon could draw up all the strategies it could muster and Lockheed Martin could stockpile millions of tons of weapons and munitions, but if no one actually went to fight the war, then there couldn't be one, could there? And seeing that there hasn't been a draft in decades, there is no excuse there. It's a volunteer military. Sure, people get conned into joining. But then they get enthusiastic about shooting whomever crosses their paths and kicking in strangers' doors and screaming at them in a language they do not understand. So, once you've gone and invaded someone's sovereignty for no reason at all, aside from because you elected to do so/were ordered to, you've forfeited all rights to life. As much as I hate to use the war makers' terms, you are then a thief of freedom and liberty and the people whose land you are invading and occupying, the ones whom you are terrorizing, they have a right to resist and expel you by any means available to them. Especially now! There is NO MISUNDERSTANDING about what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are not popular wars. All that shit about 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden and whatever else is a bunch of garbage. None of that has anything to do with what's going on in those countries and no one even bothers to claim it does any longer.

Simply put, you are no hero while you are there unless you turn your weapons back on your own side, absolutely refuse to participate regardless of the consequences to yourself or somehow manage to perform a substantial subversive function, like the tragically foolish traitor to the imperialist cause, Bradley Manning.

Praise Pastor Terry Jones

Of course the man is a beyond reprehensible piece of shit who will hopefully fall into his bonfire, but hooray for him for being stupid enough to do the things necessary to speed us towards the ultimate goal of getting the fuck off the planet.

Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”

But now the global spotlight has shifted. With the debate in New York putting religious tensions front and center, Mr. Jones has suddenly attracted thousands of fans and critics on Facebook, while around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-Islamic sentiment...

Mr. Jones who seems to spend much of his time inside a dank, dark office with a poster from the movie “Braveheart” and a picture of former President George W. Bush, appears to be largely oblivious to the potential consequences of his plans. Speaking in short sentences with a matter-of-fact drawl, he said that he could not understand why other Christians, including the nation’s largest evangelical association, had called for him to cancel “International Burn a Koran Day..."

He acknowledged that it had brought in at least $1,000 in donations. But he said that the interviews he had done with around 150 news outlets all over the world were useful mainly because they had helped him “send a message to Islam and the pushers of Shariah law: that it is not what we want.”

Mr. Jones said that nothing in particular had set him off. Asked about his knowledge of the Koran, he said plainly: “I have no experience with it whatsoever. I only know what the Bible says.”

Fuck all religions. They are all wrong and stupid. Nothing but old stories and morals, threats to keep in line. All gods are myths. There are no prophets. We have no saviors.

Bull jumps the fence, fucks up a bunch of people at a bullfight

This is great. In Spain, of course.

Fuck all these people. What a shame the bull couldn't have done more.

Crimethinc. sucks

This is the final entry regarding my thoughts on Gabriel Kuhn's Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge and Radical Politics.

For a while, I was pretty sympathetic to a lot of Crimethinc. stuff. The more I hung around people who are into it and a part of it, the less I was into it. I could never get into most of their writings. It's a lot of super-verbose, dense, dry articles that don't relate in the least to the reality the overwhelming majority of people on this planet face. Which is fine, of course, but please do not position yourself as any type of revolutionary organization, much less one that has the faintest hope of winning favor with anyone outside of a nearly infinitely small group of people who essentially do nothing productive toward actually making a revolution.

I was really into Evasion when it came out. I related to a lot of it - the hardcore, the veganism, the shoplifting, the dumpstering bagels. Some of it was a bit much (positing anything related in the book as revolutionary outside of a selfish dimension, a tendency to over-romanticize some of his experiences), and I realized it was kind of a "best of" account of the guy's life. Truth be told, I likely wouldn't have dug it nearly so much were the guy not vegan and edge. But that's not a Crimethinc. publication. They just published it. Someone who had nothing to do with them wrote it.

Crimethinc. advocates a lot of ridiculous "lifestyle anarchism" positions, from dropping out of school at sixteen years old with no plans except traveling and shoplifting (I have no philosophical problem with shoplifting in many circumstances, but please understand that there is absolutely nothing inherently revolutionary or radical about it whatsoever) to the concept that one must abandon life within "the system" or whatever to actually be a revolutionary, at least by their terms:

It's the same with talking about quitting one's job and changing one's lifestyle - people who are currently trying to do that have much more useful perspectives on it than full-time anarchists who dropped out ten years ago. (172)

Breathtaking, to be sure. Let's meditate on that for a minute. "Full-time anarchists." What could that possibly mean, especially with regard to the United States. First, it must be stated that there is no legitimate, viable anarchist movement in this country. That is a fact. There has not been for close to one hundred years. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional, by my estimation. No doubt there are lots of people who define themselves as anarchists, and also a number of groups specifically dedicated to anarchist struggle, but I am unaware of any real "full-time anarchists." Especially ones without jobs. I know people who are pretty serious anarchists (adults, over forty) and have been involved with anarchist groups and organizations for sizable portions of their lives. If they are not in prison, though, they have jobs. You can't tell that they are anarchists by looking at them. They look like real people. Cause they are. The reality is that if you are a "full-time anarchist," which I take to mean dedicating your life to making revolution (like Lenin, Mao or Castro did for communism), you are either gonna be in jail (not for shoplifting or spray painting, or even cause you threw a rock at a pig), are out of jail after a long stint, in exile, in hiding, or dead. These Crimethinc. people fit none of those profiles. Likely, they never will.

You see, and again, this is only my estimation, Crimethinc. is the privileged person's anarchism (has anarchism been much else in this country for decades?). This is for people who can run back to mom and dad when things get rough. And they do. Rich kids living "the dream." It's for people who can choose "homelessness" and "poverty." It's hard for people of color to lead the Crimethinc. life. Shoplifting from a supermarket while traveling through Iowa ain't gonna go too smoothly, likely. You know what I mean?

If you've been poor, and I mean real poverty, not the kind that you choose and out of which you can move again at will, it fucking sucks. Being on food stamps because otherwise you don't eat unless your aunt brings your family food, sucks. Getting welfare because otherwise you are (literally, not "traveling") homeless, as a family, sucks. Not having a job because you have no car and you cannot afford a taxi to get to a potential job, sucks. The fetishization of poverty is offensive to those who live it with no choice. Only rich white kids choose "poverty." Fuck all these people on poverty vacations. Your existence grates on those with whom you claim solidarity.

But I know, you've really got one over on everybody cause you don't work. Someone has to, otherwise there would be no one from whom you could mooch.

And finally, you know what? I don't work either. I haven't had a "job" in over five years. But I don't fucking care. I don't go around telling people about it. And I certainly don't think that it puts me on some road to nirvana or whatever. I've long (always?) recognized that people have to survive, and in this world, it largely means working for someone else.

If this man were Muslim (or just non-Israeli Arab)...

what would the people say?

ATLANTA – Elias Abuelazam was about to board a plane for Israel when police arrested him in connection with a three-month stabbing spree that left five men dead, 13 others wounded and a Michigan city in terror. In the moments before the bald, pudgy man in flip-flops and shorts was handcuffed, passengers saw him nervously talking on his cell phone, insisting he wasn't violent.

The Israeli citizen and legal U.S. resident was charged Thursday in just one case out of Flint, Mich., the battered industrial city where most of the stabbings occurred, but authorities said more charges are expected there and in Ohio and Virginia. At least 15 of the 18 victims were black but it was unclear whether the attacks were racially motivated.

Flint residents hope the arrest ends their summer of fear. Roughly every four days since late May on average, the killer approached men on lonely roads at night, asking for directions or help with a broken-down car. Then he'd pull out a knife, plunge it into his victim and speed away; in one case he used a hammer. The youngest victim was 15; the oldest 67.

Nothing good, I can assure you. He's Christian, by the way. Or at least his family is.

Still hate this place

Fuck these people. Holy shit, I cannot emphasize "fuck them" enough. Were there a god, or if I had the slightest delusion that there were one, I swear I would dedicate entire days to praying for the extermination of such people:

Protect Marriage, the coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored the ban, said it would immediately appeal the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"In America, we should uphold and respect the right of people to make policy changes through the democratic process, especially changes that do nothing more than uphold the definition of marriage that has existed since the founding of this country and beyond," said Jim Campbell, a lawyer on the defense team.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Get me the fuck out.

Ian Mackaye is very insightful

Next in the series of responses to Gabriel Kuhn's Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge and Radical Politics.

Reading/listening to Ian Mackaye can teach you a lot about life. It has me. This is a guy who has really thought about shit his whole life and ACTUALLY FIGURED SOME THINGS OUT. That's the big deal. Lots of people think about stuff, but this guy got somewhere. It's really something. That's what it means to be wise, to actually reach conclusions that can help people, to which people can relate.

I don't know how many times I would have a car go by and someone would scream, "Fuck you, you fucking punk faggot!" But then I realized that if you do not speak that language, you recognize that they are not talking to you. Let's say that I'm in Sweden, and a carload with a bunch of guys goes by and they yell something at me in Swedish. I don't know what they're saying. As far as I know, they are saying, "I love basketball!" Who knows? So when I'm walking along the street here and some guys go by in a car, and they don't know me, I don't know them, but they say, "You're a fucking punk faggot, fuck you!" then it should have the same effect. They are not talking to me, they don't know me, and I'm not what they say I am, so they must have me confused with someone else. In short, if you don't speak the language of violence, you are released from violence. This was a very powerful discovery for me.

It's a discovery on which I'm still working, but at least I've got some directions on how to get there.

Here is the other quote that really struck me in his exchange with Gabriel Kuhn:

There was a certain period in my life when I was very angry, when I was really agonizing over things. It made me feel miserable, and I began to question everything: What is the point of all this punk rock? What is the point of me singing? What am I trying to do? Eventually, I realized that the reason I was so angry was because I want people in the world to be well. And I realized that it was a worthwhile project to pursue in my lifetime. But I also understood that I myself needed to be well to do that. So I figured that I would do my best to live a life of wellness. This doesn't mean that I'm trying to bask in my riches. It means that I'm trying to release myself from the anger and agony. Remember what I said earlier about someone going by in a car and calling me a "fucking asshole?" They are not talking to me - 'cause I'm not a fucking asshole.

Brilliant, just fucking brilliant. I cannot explain how deeply I relate to that. I burn for people, animals and the planet to be well and the ensuing certain frustrations make me so angry and hateful towards the bulk of the human population. I feel this every day. It is constant. I just don't feel that there is really anything I can do to make anyone or anything well. It's all a series of frustrating, crashing defeats. Over and over.

Releasing oneself from the anger and agony, that is the challenge of my life. If nothing else, it's very comforting to read this and only further cements the idea that Ian Mackaye is an exceptional thinker.

It's so important to realize that Ian did this stuff, this letting go and moving ahead, without giving up. He didn't get a stupid haircut and snazzy new jeans. He didn't lose himself in some empty fashion, he didn't immerse himself in an indulgent, vapid, solipsistic music scene. No. He has been vegan forever, he is still straight edge and punk as fuck. He still cares about people and animals in a serious way, but figured out how to do it without destroying himself. I need to figure that out cause you better believe I'm not going to go out like the rest of those pieces of shit. I'll die alone and in misery before that happens.

Dennis Lyxzén - what is he talking about?

Here's the next installment of my thoughts on what I read in Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge and Radical Politics. I read Dennis' interview with great enthusiasm. Some of it was pretty rad, but overall, I was not that into it. He's really image-oriented, which I am just so not about. He talks about how the Noise Conspiracy change their sound and their aesthetic every time they put out a record, saying crap like this:

I mean, we've been playing for ten years now with Noise Conspiracy, and you can look at our outfits throughout the years, and they've changed a lot, and so did the whole aesthetics. With every new record, we try something new - not only with the aesthetics, but with the politics and the music too. We maintain our ideas and our musical foundation, but we kind of switch and twist them a little bit every time and try to spice them up with something new.

You know, a lot of people try to decide what exactly it is that people should like about their band. We just figure that people can dig the politics, they can dig the snazzy outfits, they can dig the music, they can dig whatever - it's up to them to decide what to take with them when they leave our show or listen to our record. So while many bands are like, "This is what we are and this is what you should like about us," we just say, "Whatever you like is cool with us. If you don't like the politics, we're sure you find something else that you like."

I am just so turned off by that. It's like a fucking stage show. Politics is fun everybody. Whoo whoo, revolution rules! Slogans and marketing, fashion and image. Fuck all of that. Empty shit. Judging by people's responses to the last nine Noise Conspiracy full-lengths, I would say that lots of people realized that they are full of shit. Then he goes on to say something that made me like the dudes in Refused a whole lot:

I was always into this concept [changing images and ideologies], so with Noise Conspiracy I got a chance to realize it. Actually, when we did the last batch of touring with Refused, I tried to get the band to wear matching outfits, but the guitar players just happened to "lose" them. After a week of shows they were just like, "Eh, these jackets that we had tailor-made are gone..."

Good, fuck those jackets. What a bunch of boy band crap. Fuck.

Speaking of changing images, up top is a very recent picture of Dennis. He's punk as fuck these days, looking like it's 82. I guess it's appropriate, now that he's got his matching band.

So anyway, this is what Dennis has to say about his ideological and philosophical inspirations:

Personally, I like to mix different sources and hope that something cool will come out of it. Anarchism and socialism I've always been into. Situationism - which is as much an art movement as it is a political movement with an amazing critique of capitalist society, right at the breaking point of modernism and postmodernism - is just really well suited for lyrics, especially if you look at Raoul Vaneigem. And poststructuralism helps you understand how the world works today. Then you throw in some surrealism and some dada, and everything becomes even more interesting.

Interesting indeed. What a fun political collage life is. Anarchism and socialism? Situationism is not just well suited for lyrics, but also verbose, dense and largely irrelevant to those who aren't highly educated or pseudo-intellectual.

I guess he really does want revolution with a catchy phrase. What's after that? A bunch of well-dressed revolutionaries speaking to one another about a bunch of esoteric ideas? Way to be practical. So intensely privileged.

It's not like there's really any hope in anarchism (or socialism, or anything else he references), but come on, this guy is just making a mockery of it all and yet somehow has stood as an icon for radical music for years. People who are so into crafting their public self image really bum me the fuck out.